Tag Archives: Getty

James Wood, the CEO of The Getty Center in Los Angeles and prominent museum leader and scholar, passed away at the age of 69. Jori Finkel called him a “leader among museum leaders” in this post on Culture Monster, an arts blog that is part of the LA Times.

Michael Govan, Los Angeles County Museum of Art:
James Wood and Anne d’Harnoncourt [of the Philadelphia Museum of Art] were the two museum directors that people really looked up to — they were the ones who made it safe for people like me to go into the museum world. They had a kind of clarity and elegance about their sense of purpose, what they were doing and how they were doing it. They were leaders, that was clear: They composed themselves as leaders, they spoke of themselves as leaders.

The Portland Art Museum, in collaboration with genius website, Smarthistory, has launched a new section of its website: Multimedia!

I am beyond excited about the Museum’s partnership with Smarthistory, which was funded by The Kress Foundation. In May 2009, Smarthistory founders Beth Harris and Steve Zucker visited with staff in Portland in order to share their conversation-based interpretive method. If you have ever been to the Smarthistory website, you already know its this really engaging and creative multimedia space where you can learn about art and art history. According to the Museum, the staff wanted to find out whether this method might encourage a deeper and freer conversation for visitors.

While this remains to be seen, it is obvious that the inclusion of a Multimedia section on its website is a smart and fresh action by the Museum as it strives to more actively engage its web-savvy public. I look forward to scoping out the Conversations About Works of Art audio later tonight (currently blogging incognito from the internship!). It’s a great start, and in the future I hope to see more from the Museum in the way of online resources, exhibits, collections information, and educational tools. While some of us may be surprised that the organization is just now catching up with the digital trend that some museums have been keen on for a while, we need to remember that it was only a year ago that Portland welcomed a new savvy Director of Education from the Getty Foundation, Dr. Tina Olsen. It’s obvious she is working wonders with the educational programming there, including catching it up to the 21st-century. Kudos to the Portland Art Museum!

Engaging with the question, “Do artists have a right to a prominent and engaged presence in public life?”, Bill Ivey, former chair of the NEA, will speak Tuesday, June 2 at the Getty Center…for FREE. You must go if you’re in that area. More information by clicking here.